Imagine Actually Believing Ted Cruz Is a Reasonable Politician

Being our semi-regular weekly survey of the state of Our National Dialogue which, as we know, is what The Beatles would have produced had they recorded "Derp Prudence."

Before awarding this week's House Cup for The Sunday Showz, we should pause for a moment and look around again in the disorganized toy chest that is the mind of Maureen Dowd. Things are jumbled up there again among the various playthings she has made out of the public figures of our time.

Hillary alternately tried to blame and hug the men in her life, divvying up credit in a self-serving way.

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Already we're in the petting zoo of Pan's Labyrinth.

After showing some remorse for the 1994 crime bill, saying it had had "unintended" consequences, she stressed that her husband "was the president who actually signed it." On Libya, she noted that "the decision was the president's." And on her desire to train and arm Syrian rebels, she recalled, "The president said no." But she wrapped herself in President Obama's record on climate change and, when criticized on her "super PACs," said, well, Obama did it, too. Sanders accused her of pandering to Israel after she said that "if Yasir Arafat had agreed with my husband at Camp David," there would have been a Palestinian state for 15 years.

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Well, OK. HRC's use of human shields has been noted and criticized here in the shebeen as well, but not in the context of the Black Widow Hillary with whom La Dowd toys. And then there's this.

Like other decisions, it was put through a political filter and a paranoid mind-set. She did not want to be seen, in that blindingly patriotic time, as the bohemian woman standing to the left of the military.

Unless there were exotic mushrooms on my pizza back in 2002, this "political filter" afflicted a lot of Democratic politicians, most major American newspapers and television news outlets, a bargeload of political pundits, and the eventual 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, to name only a few examples. (Bill Moyers once counted up the full roster on PBS. It was an ugly, uglyexercise.) But, in the perennially inflamed borderland between intellect and libido from which la Dowd draws her analysis, HRC's support for the great blunder comes from a "paranoid mind-set." Jesus, somebody get the net.

It would be easy simply to rivet the House Cup down on the mantelpiece in the main function room of broadcasting's Hotel Overlook, where my man Chuck Todd always has been the caretaker, simply because he keeps inviting Hugh Hewitt on to contribute his special brand of nothing. But that wouldn't be entirely fair, because the other competitors keep trying very hard to stay with the lead dog-team. Take, for example, the gang at This Week With The Clinton Guy Shocked By Blowjobs. They had both Democratic candidates drop by, and they did their damndest to recreate the debate that had occurred three days earlier. But their effort didn't reach its true peak until they brought on two career political sharpsters to wax philosophical about democratic values.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You and Mr. Trump keep talking about the rigged system. But—but, you know, so far, Donald Trump has won about 37 percent of the vote and he's gotten 48 percent of the delegates. You could argue that the system is rigged in his favor.

MANAFORT: No, no, no. When I say rigged system, I'm talking about closed system, a system that keeps the voters from participating, because, what this election has shown is that when voters participate, Donald Trump wins. When the bosses participate, Donald Trump's interests are not there, because he's the outsider. He's the one making the case to change the banking system, change the economy, change the political system so that the people's interests start to get represented, not the establishment.

So saith the man who got hip-deep in squashing the Orange Revolution in Ukraine because, you know, democracy, and on behalf of Vladimir Putin's poodle. But the cherry on the sundae was the appearance of theocratic nutball Ken Cuccinelli, now wrangling delegates for Tailgunner Ted Cruz.

STEPHANOPOULOS: —you've used a similar kind of rhetoric. You've actually accused the Trump campaign of Gestapo tactics. Name one.

CUCCINELLI: Yes, absolutely. How about calling for riots in the street? How about threats: we're going to go to the hotel rooms of delegates; death threats to the Colorado Republican chairman? I can give you answers to those questions, George, but they can't. And they keep using the rhetoric. This is a banana republic approach from the Trump team because they're getting beat on the ground. They have a media campaign that is—you know, is—gets a lot of media attention. But Ted Cruz has built a grassroots campaign on people and people's vision across America and they're carrying this forward. You know, we're winning because thousands of Americans have risen up to Ted's message, to get behind that and to win in these conventions and in these caucuses and in these primaries and we're doing it. And we're going to keep doing it through June 7th and then on to Cleveland.